


take a chance on me

by strongandlovestofic



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: (because we're committing ALL the sins today), M/M, POV Second Person, Pining, Social Anxiety, it's not a slowburn bc it's not long enough but i wish it were, just regular ol' anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strongandlovestofic/pseuds/strongandlovestofic
Summary: “Listen, I'm here for this and for you,” Allegra says, “so if this is what we're doing, cool, but I'd hoped to get some actual words from Patrick Gill about the mistakes he's made.”





	take a chance on me

**Author's Note:**

> to paraphrase a dear friend (who betaed this LIKE A BOSS, she's my hecking hero and came up with multiple heart-wrenching lines that KILLED ME) on why this exists: "they're cute and shut up." which. basically.
> 
> ETA: i canNOT BELIEVE that 20 minutes after i posted this patrick gill announced he's done open mic night before and nearly ruined the central conceit of this fic. heck's sake, pat!!!!!!

The invite for Brian's show goes out to the entire team, an open-ended kind of “if you're not doing anything, you know, you could come by?” and you think about it for half a minute before deciding it's not your scene — a bar full of strangers and nothing to pay attention to but a dimly lit stage, two men and a guitar, low voices. You'll go home and stream instead, relax with Charles and maybe Skype Allegra later, ask her how it went.

This is what you've decided, until Brian's in the office late rendering and so are you — the whole “two friends who come into work late” thing isn't just a joke for the stream — and he looks up from his monitor and asks, half-smile on his face, eyes peeking over the rims of his glasses, “Uh, you coming tonight?”

And how the fuck do you say no to that smile?

-

It's hard to convince yourself to leave your apartment — you should've gone to the bar straight from work, God it's embarrassing that's the better option in your head — but you announce to the living room you've got someplace to be so you're only home for a sec, to make yourself accountable.

Adam hums at you, head buried in his iPad, and you answer the unasked question: “Brian's got a band. Did you know that? I think it's an actual band.”

“He's never linked his SoundCloud after he's gone viral,” Adam responds, and you huff a laugh, heading into your bedroom to see if there's anything worth changing into in your closet. You don't need to change. No one else is gonna change — it's not like you're gonna get tossed out of a bar for wearing the same shit you wore to work. But you look through your closet anyway, shoving Charles off your bed so you can lay clothes out without worrying about him getting (more) hair on anything. The bar will be dark, right? You wear a lot of dark colors, and you'll just blend into the crowd, just one of the twenty people there who're getting a drink and a show. You've never been on stage, but you know from cultural osmosis (and half the video team staff ranting about college theatre or live shows) that stage lights may as well blind you to the audience.

You grab a white shirt from its hanger without thinking about it too much.

Your hair's fine, your beard — needs trimming, but you've, ha, somehow wasted 25 minutes reconsidering your whole aesthetic and need to leave if you want to be there fashionably late. You probably look fine? And what you're wearing doesn't matter. It'll be loud and dark and socializing will be useless, Brian will do his set, you'll congratulate him after and then head home. Yeah, you're as good as you're gonna get.

Adam whistles at you and you generously flip him off when you leave, and his laughter follows you out the door.

-

Allegra and Simone are sharing a tight booth when you arrive, barely on time, and you slide in next to Allegra, who immediately starts elbowing you for taking up room. “Can't believe you got an invite to this video team exclusive function,” you tell her, and she rolls her eyes.

“I'm an honored guest, and you should buy me a beer.”

“Shit, let me in on this,” Simone says, then empties and holds out her glass expectantly, and you sigh with so much honest fucking affection and go to get a pitcher for the table.

You wave at Jenna, Russ, and Clayton, who're sharing a table closer to the stage, as you maneuver your way back to your booth, and mostly succeed at not spilling beer when you set the pitcher and fresh glasses down.

“Have you guys ever listened to his music?” Simone asks as she's pouring. You haven't — it's nothing personal, you should've listened to it, you try to follow everybody's side projects at least peripherally, but Brian's still new, and you haven't gotten around to it. That's all. You've seen most of his videos, saw them before he was hired. (You tapped out of _Dances Moving!_ because even if it was posted publicly, it felt too personal for someone whose future you were contributing to a decision on. Now it still feels too personal, in a way you’ve not spent time dissecting.)

The lights dim and someone walks up to the mic and thanks y'all for coming out tonight. Somebody whoops from the front, and you realize you might end up meeting Brian's sister. She's probably seen your videos with Brian, your mildly successful nightmare public access show, maybe even that first stream where you offered Brian a chance to call you “old man”. (If Simone is given the opportunity, she will have that conversation engraved on your headstone.) It's not a big deal if she's seen your videos — your mom's seen your videos, and even if she doesn't get all the references she just tells you you're crass while laughing about it. She doesn't read anything into them. There's nothing to read into.

You drink half your glass of beer in the next minute, and find yourself yelling “fuck yeah, Brian!” when the first guy leaves the stage and Brian and his bandmate take it.

-

You should've listened to his music. They aren't the next Beatles or anything, but they're good — the lyrics are honest and the backing’s solid, but the thing is...

It's possible you've drunk half this pitcher yourself.

So Brian sings all the Goddamned time. It's a quirk you're used to by now, and when he does it while you're streaming it's so easy to just sing along with him, even when the idea of singing in front of people still makes you want to dissolve yourself in acid. (You rarely rewatch the streams, but you've watched the fan compilations, and they always include the singing. There's even one video of _just_ the singing, and the fact that you're singing in so much of it that _isn't_ that vast hellscape of the Zelda stream is bizarre and uncomfortable and definitely all Brian's fault.)

But he's always doing it jokingly, or offhandedly. He's always playing to something, or he's not thinking about it at all, and you're used to that. You've acclimatized to him freestyling something while waiting on a loading screen.

He’s changed his clothes from what he wore at work. (At least you’re not the only one who did.) The faded plaid shirt looks soft under his denim jacket, and he’s messed his hair up more than normal. He’s not wearing his glasses, and you wonder if he’s got contacts in or if he just didn’t want to be able to see the crowd.

He jokes between songs, awkward small talk that gets quiet titters from the bar, and when he says, “I wrote this one for a project I worked on when I was planning to move to New York,” Simone stage whispers, “Oh no — oh no, this fucking song makes me cry, oh my God.”

You’re missing the emotional connection Simone’s got — still, it’s nice, like Vampire Weekend but sadder. It makes you feel… there's a longing to it, like you're reaching for something just past the edge of your vision, that you can only hope is there. Simone actually wipes her eyes midway through.

They start the next song without a break and you're not sure what to do with the tilt of Brian's voice, as he pleads to an unknown girl. The slow croon of sincere words and the gentle drift of his eyes closing when he's harmonizing. Just _Brian_ , in some pure distillation of himself, on a stage doing something you could never bring yourself to do.

You don't know any of these songs, and you want to sing along with him.

-

“You didn't fuck up!” Simone crows, throwing her arms into the air, and Brian's laughing as he responds, “We didn't fuck up!”

You meet Jonah, Brian's bandmate and other roommate, and Laura, Brian’s sister — she shakes your hand and looks you dead in the eye and thanks you for taking care of her brother, and you feel a sudden spike of unexplained anxiety with no apparent source.

It's late, so everyone seems to independently arrive at the conclusion that there will be no after-party. You kind of hate that: you want to celebrate, to give yourself a reason to say or do something that isn't you clapping Brian on the shoulder (he took off his jacket mid-set and his shirt is sticking to his skin in some places, dark with sweat, you can tell from this close) and telling him you dig his groovy tunes. You want...

His eyes crinkle when he smiles at you. The entire line of his body is tired, and you open your mouth and you're joking about carrying him home on your back on the subway, and that smile transforms into a laugh, and he asks you, rarely letting you get the last word, “So I won?”

“Yeah, sure,” you reply, because he does look like he's won something, the smile stretching across his face, his eyes bright under the streetlamp light, the sheen to his skin. He looks like he won something, and the way he's looking at you makes you feel like you're part of that, even if all you did was drink shitty beer and holler your support between songs. (Midway through you realized you were competing with Simone for who could be more raucous, and she definitely won because once you'd realized it, you'd stopped before the mortification could fully set in.)

“Sweet,” Brian replies, and you're standing across from each other in a disorganized circle of your friends and coworkers, and you want to brush his hair out of his eyes, but you run your hand through your own hair instead.

You head home and crash into bed and loop an arm around Charlie, who struggles for a bit before giving up like the lazy ass cat he is. And then, when you can't sleep, you grab your phone and text Allegra:

_I'm really fucked._

-

“I wake up to this text from my best brother sounding like he's on the verge of death,” Allegra is already saying when you answer your phone, “but at least you picked up, because I didn't want to have to barge in to your apartment at ass o’clock and explain to your gaggle of roommates you're mid-breakdown.”

You can imagine her face right now — exasperated but kind, and it centers you a little after the sudden, literal wake-up call. “Yeah. Uh. I wasn't sure you'd be awake, so, sorry. I'm fine. Everything's cool.”

Allegra's silence carries volumes of well-intentioned judgment that you absolutely deserve, and you glance at the time — 8am, how does Allegra function on this little sleep — before covering your eyes with your arm and breathing in deep.

“So was this a normal 3am freakout, or like, inspired by actual events?”

She can tell when you're lying. She knows you too well, which you normally appreciate because you don't have to explain yourself around her — she just gently calls you a dumbass and rubs your head. You can sense the “dumbass” is imminent.

“Actual events,” you say, and she exhales right into the phone mic and tells you she's coming over to eat your snacks and start day drinking.

God, you love her.

-

“Ooh, day drinking,” Adam says when he sees you both on the couch, and then corrects himself: “Dawn drinking?”

“Dawn drinking,” you agree, and wait until Adam shuffles into the kitchen before dropping your head onto the back of the couch again.

“Listen, I'm here for this and for you,” Allegra says, “so if this is what we're doing, cool, but I'd hoped to get some actual words from Patrick Gill about the mistakes he's made.”

“Which are so many,” you maybe whine, and then laugh, because what else are you gonna do? “He's 24 fucking years old.”

“Oh shit,” Allegra says. You don't normally get straight to the point. There's usually more equivocating, and more disappointed stares, and you don't look at her so you can't see what this change in the order of the universe does to her expression, but you imagine it's seismic.

You're both silent, and then she says, “I mean, he probably hasn't been fucking for all 24 of those years,” and you moan out _Jesus, Allegra_ and can't keep yourself from laughing.

-

It's not the age thing. It's not entirely the age thing. It's not even entirely the coworker thing, or the guy thing. (Though that's a Russian nesting doll in its own right.) It's a shitty brick wall of each thing spackled together, and you're the one holding the trowel and you're the shittiest part here, but you're not going to say any of this aloud because Allegra might smack you. Allegra sees the best and worst of you, and somehow doesn't think the worst is too bad, and you never know what to do with that.

“Coworker crushes are not like, unknown,” she intones, and you slide your glasses off so you can run your hands down your face. “And we've all got pretty cute butts.”

She's giving you an out, a way to play this off, to pretend you aren't having a nascent breakdown about the boy in your office with, yes, a cute butt. You want to take it. You're going to take it. You've had coworker crushes before (even discounting old jobs, everyone at the office is stupid photogenic and the medium requires you to be charming) and because you're a semi-functional adult you've weathered them. You’ll get past this too.

“That's what it is,” you agree, and as soon as the words leave your mouth, you realize how much of a lie it really is. If you'd been alone with him last night, you think you may have actually thrown caution to the wind and reached out. You may have _said something_ , done something instead of standing there with your thumb up your ass and a vacant smile on your face.

She nudges your shoulder with hers. Maybe she even believes you. You nudge her back.

-

You're fine after that Godawful Saturday morning. You reorient yourself, get used to your new life — y'know, as this new unique flavor of Patrick jackass. A variation on the original.

Allegra never brings it up, because she's one of the last decent people left in the world, and so you blunder through pitching and shooting and producing and streaming like you always do, and somehow some of it's even decent. You do a stream with Brian where you braid each other's hair anytime you die in Braid (which is a stupid ass idea for several not-insignificant reasons but mainly because the death mechanic in the game doesn't lend itself to this); and there's a point at which the chat starts goading Brian to try and braid your beard that you get distracted by the way his whole body gets involved in whatever he's doing:

“So like we said at the start of the stream, it's the 10 year anniversary of Braid coming out, one of _the_ best indie games ever made,” Brian says, “and even though it's not re-releasing anywhere—”

“It's still a great idea to play a fable about the dangers of Nice Guys and/or nuclear war!” you say, and Brian sinks deeper into the couch and laughs, his head falling back, arms flopping around him. Millennial humor is half bodily fluid jokes and half nihilism, and it’s nice knowing exactly how to make him laugh. You imagine pressing your mouth to the long line of his throat.

You smile into the camera and don't think about how close his hand’s fallen next to yours, and when he moves back into his space you don't regret the loss.

When the stream’s over and you've both packed everything up and unbraided all your hair (God, how is this your job), Brian lingers by the couch. He's fidgeting more than normal, antsy, and when you cock an eyebrow at him he laughs and glances to the side. “So uh, I haven't eaten since breakfast because I forgot we weren't doing food crimes this episode.”

“We do fashion crimes now,” you say, and you toss your hair exaggeratedly to see him laugh again.

“Right,” he says, and he looks directly at you. “So I was thinking, do you wanna grab something?”

He's holding himself still all of a sudden, weirdly still, something he doesn't really do ever, and you feel like you have to move to make up for it. Except all you can do is step toward or away from him, and you're not gonna back up. So you get closer and he startles, and he's about to make an excuse for his own offer, you can _tell_ , when you accept.

-

It becomes a thing, after the stream. You get pizza or burgers or Indian, and most of the time you eat it together, just you and him not performing for anyone but each other.

And what you’re doing _is_ a performance — you’re spending a shit ton of energy trying to figure out how to come off like a semi-normal human being.

“Can I confess something?” Brian asks one of these nights, voice quiet and warm, like he hadn’t just been robustly trying to defend his inability to eat any level of spiciness in his saag paneer.

You hum, shoving more naan into your mouth, and nod at him.

“This is — do you ever feel like this is all not real? Or, surreal.” He pauses, taking a long breath. He looks past your shoulder out at the street, his eyes unfocusing. His hair’s getting longer, and not for the first time you think about just… running your fingers through it. You’re a fucking loser. “That you ended up here at this job and you're paid to do— ”

“Weird bullshit?” you interrupt, and he laughs.

“Yeah. And somehow you're the person who got it, and not anybody else. I was talking to Jenna about it, how it's just — we're not as big of a deal as some sites, and there's that group of people who like, hate Polygon for stupid reasons, but it's still.” He moves his fork around his plate. You can see the lights from outside just barely reflecting in his glasses. “I might actually be more stressed right now than I was when I was unemployed, but I really love it. You know? Does that — make any sort of sense?”

“Yeah,” you say, because you get it. It's surreal, that you're here at this point in your life, that you're here at all. That you used to comment on Polygon and now you work there, that you left Maine for New York, that you didn't join the Air Force, that you're sitting across from Brian who somehow wound up here too. You don't really deserve any of this, but you'd fight every motherfucker on Earth to keep it. “Nah, I get it. It can be… a lot, sometimes.”

And it's not a great response, but Brian smiles at you like it was, and you feel your chest crack open like somebody's gone at you with rib cutters and filled the empty space they found with fucking sunshine.

-

Brian's responsible for a lot of the day-to-day stuff you used to be in charge of. It was hard at first — not because you didn't think he could manage it, but because actually passing over work isn't a skill you've had a lot of experience with. You forget you don’t have to do everything. You forget you actually trust Brian’s going to turn out something great at the end of it.

He tends to send you stuff he's working on though, and you're not sure if he just wants you to watch it or if he's seeking your approval. It's always good — this time, he sends you part of an episode he's working on where he's ostensibly talking about a free game but mostly expressing existential dread, and you have to shove your hand over your mouth to keep from annoying your coworkers with your laughter.

You retaliate with a series of gifs you've saved from Brand Slam of outrageously oily boys, and later when it's just the two of you and Allegra in the office (she's got headphones in and doesn’t “want you nerds to bother me”), Brian says, “So let's say I wanted to actually watch wrestling, not just put on monster costumes and fall over a lot,” and your breath catches like you're a character in one of Simone's romance novels.

You rally, say, “God, there’s a lot to get into, but NXT — it’s the WWE’s developmental branch, I think you were there when I mentioned them—”

“Yeah, I saw they’re coming here in August,” he interrupts, nodding, which means he remembers you rambling about NXT, and looked it up himself. Everyone on the team is now at least wrestling-conversant by now, thanks to the Arby’s Monster Factory episode and Brand Slam, but nobody’s expressed actual interest in wrestling beyond the cursory knowledge needed to enjoy pixels beating the shit out of each other. You feel a rush of exhilaration at the chance to get someone else into something you _love_ , immediately followed by the crushing need to not be such a huge fucking nerd about this in front of someone you. In front of Brian.

He says, “Tickets weren’t that expensive, were they?” and you feel like you’re vibrating in your boots.

“I don’t think so,” you reply, which is the simpler way of saying you hadn’t checked because you didn’t want to go by yourself.

“Cool,” he says, and he smiles up at you, his eyes warm, and you're doing so fine, absolutely killing not-being-a-weirdo about this.

Until he continues, “In that case, d’you wanna go with me?” and the most you can get out is a soft _sure, that'd be great_ , that feels like it was gut-punched outta you.

-

You're waiting for the train together one night after work, talking about what you've gotta do tomorrow, about the new video Brian's working with Clayton on, about what you want to play for the next Overboard, and between one moment and the next Brian's closer to you. His hand is on yours, and he's smiling at you again, soft and careful, and all at once your mind focuses on a thousand different things:

The station's empty but there are still people here. No one pays anyone else any amount of attention, except for the few people who pay everyone too much attention. Brian’s eyes seem to shift between brown and green; if you could take his glasses off his face, you could tell for sure. You've still got to figure out how not to consistently fuck up streams on Twitch before you can convince everyone it's a good idea. Brian's hand is warm and dry, and his fingers are pressing against the back of your wrist. Against your rapid pulse. Your train is coming in 4 minutes. You need to get more cat food. You hate it when people like you because they eventually get tired of you, because you can be a real piece of shit and no one should have to put up with that. A train — not yours — is Goddamn loud as it pulls into the station. You're too old to freak out like this about somebody holding your hand.

Brian sways closer to you, his eyes flickering towards your mouth, and you shudder away and step back, and with every ounce of your body calling you an absolute cowardly dipshit, you say, “Hey, see you tomorrow, have a great night.”

And you don't look back at him as you rush onto the newly arrived train (not your fucking train of course, a random fucking train), and you don't think about his face, about how he went from nervous and gentle and so fucking pretty to blank, still nervous, but blank, and after you've collapsed onto a seat and the doors have shut, you rub your hand under your glasses, over your eyes, and leave it there, pressing hard until you see sparking lights behind your eyelids.

You have no idea where this fucking train’s taking you, other than away.

-

There’s no late night text to Allegra because you don’t need help figuring yourself out. You know exactly who you are, and what you did, because it’s why you’re 30 and single. You’ve always known it was your fault when relationships didn’t work out — even if logically, you know that’s not always true, but. _It is_. Still.

That shitty voice in the back of your head telling you you’re worthless isn’t always right and definitely doesn’t want what’s best for you, but it’s your oldest friend, and in the end it’s safer to trust the friends you’ve had the longest.

-

Nothing really changes. You still goof off together with the rest of the team, and previous planning you’ve put into Gill & Gilbert will ensure it’s still a mildly successful nightmare public access show, and Tara still tells you both your senses of humor are deranged and that if she has to hear about Piss Constable one more time she’s firing everyone.

You should be nominated for an Oscar. Keeping it up with Allegra and Simone is especially exhausting, but if anyone suspects anything, they’re not letting you know.

When you broke your nose, everything hurt. There was a dull ache that accompanied just being awake and breathing. You couldn’t wear your glasses normally so either everything was blurry or you’d get sharp spikes of pain when your glasses settled wrong. When your nose itched it was like an experiment in masochism — touching your nose made you want to die, and not touching it made everything in your life hyperfocus on the simple need to touch your nose (and subsequently want to die).

You haven’t broken anything physical this time, but you’re not sure it matters. You sit a foot and a half from each other during that week’s stream, and he doesn’t spill into your personal space — he maintains this expanse between you, like there’s an invisible forcefield powered by your mutual awkwardness. He skips the segment suggestions that involve physical interaction.

After the stream and the clean-up, when Brian would usually ask you where you wanted to eat that night, he hesitates. He’s holding the skeleton in his hands, which feels appropriate in a way you don’t know how to describe. Like he’s peeled back his own skin, exposed himself, vulnerable and aching. (Or maybe you’re projecting.)

“Do you — still want to get something? To eat?” he asks, and he grimaces, biting the inside of his lip. “Shit.”

You don’t want to have this conversation now or ever. Well, no — you desperately want to have this conversation, but you don’t want to have to be physically present for it. Maybe it could happen over text, or Slack, or Discord, or actual written letters that are delivered every other afternoon.

“Hey, I’m sorry?” Brian tries again, and your chest hurts. It feels like there’s a weight tied around the top of your esophagus, dragging it down behind your sternum. “I thought you — listen, I’m cool, with you not. I won’t make it weird, I’m not going to, so if we could just forget last week happened, and be friends again, or coworkers even? I’d really, _really_ appreciate it.”

“You don’t, uh.” You cough. Your throat is dry. You want to grab his hand like he did yours, and feel the thud of his pulse under your fingertips. “You don’t need to apologize. I — overreacted, ha, I was surprised. I didn’t expect you to… do that.”

“Neither did I,” he says, too fast, like he hadn’t intended to respond, and the skeleton rattles in his hands and he laughs, a little higher-pitched than he normally does, and you laugh too, because this is a circle of hell you hadn’t known existed.

He sighs. His — God, his hair is like, deflated, and you can’t believe that’s what you’re thinking about right now, and you have to garner all of your self-control to not laugh again, because you’ve lost it.

“So are we cool?” Brian asks. “Like, normal cool.”

“I,” you say, and the next words should be easy. _Yes_. One syllable. _Absolutely_. More syllables, but solid. _We’re cool, normal cool_.

There is an opportunity directly in front of you. There are two paths to take that you can see clearly. You’re honestly not sure which is — which is logical, and which one you just _want_.

You don’t give yourself enough credit: you know this, Allegra knows this, the entire internet probably knows this by now. You don’t lack confidence, you’ve got it in spades when it comes to wrestling and shitposting, but outside of those you’re basically one of those pangolins everyone on Twitter says are too nervous to ask you to prom. There's probably a pathology there that someone would take your money to examine, walk you through why you're insistent on kneecapping yourself, but you don't have the time or the money or the wherewithal to be that responsible about it.

What you know is that people talk about their feelings every day. They confess to each other, they go on dates. It's the most normal, average thing. You've even managed it before.

You could just go home. You could say everything's chill and get something to eat, shoot the shit, go home and stream Mario RPG and do it all again tomorrow. You could check Tinder irregularly, go on dates with nice women who you aren’t particularly interested in seeing a second time. And Brian would move forward with his life too, and he'd meet someone and smile at them like they were important, and they'd be emotionally competent enough to ask him out. To keep asking him out. To admit their fucking feelings.

Nothing's stopping you from doing that. From being that person. And even if that's not who you normally are, you do shit you wouldn't normally do around Brian all the time. You've created an entire show based on the premise, where you _sing_ , for God's sake. And Brian's standing right here, hopeful and sad in equal measures, and he likes you. Despite everything about who you are, he _likes_ you.

 _Get on the right fucking train, Pat_ , and for once the lecturing voice in your head sounds kind _._

“We’re not normal cool,” is what you say, and you can’t figure out exactly what Brian’s expression is, and that’s — fine, because you feel like you’re well on your way to disassociating and you’re barreling on anyway, throwing caution to the wind, because being terrified of everything unknown is exhausting and no fucking way to live, “Because I want to see what, uh, what happens. If that’s — we’re uh, still-to-be-determined cool. If that’s cool with you.”

“Oh my God, why didn’t I use a word that wasn’t _cool_ , I have a lot of conflicting feelings about _cool_ now,” Brian says, and when he takes a step towards you the skeleton rattles again and that — breaks whatever tension was left in the room between you, and you’re laughing.

“I am too fucking old to be this awkward,” you say, which is not a problem Brian has, because he is a child. “I swear to God I am not this awkward when I’m actually in a relationship,” you continue, which is so close to an admission, and it’s only the smile that lights up Brian’s face that keeps you from taking any of it back.

-

You go and get dinner. Brian slides in next to you in the booth, and your entire focus is on the warm press of his thigh against yours.

He says, half a foot from your ear, “I thought for a while there that I’d have to like, stand outside your apartment with a boombox and sing ABBA until someone called the cops on me.”

God, that’s charming. You’re charmed. You shove french fries into your mouth and say around a mess of potato, “No one would call the cops on you. They’d throw something. Which song?”

“Uh, probably ‘Take a Chance on Me’, y’know,” he replies, and he starts singing it, quiet enough that it’s not for anyone but you, _if you change your mind_ , and, hell.

You sing along.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! i'd love to hear from you in a comment below, if you'd like to share. :) i live off of good vibes, and i'm planning more fics in this fandom because i am a disaster of a person -- so let me know if you enjoyed this one!


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